Brubecks Play Brubeck – review

Tuesday 30 November 2010 17.01 EST
First published on Tuesday 30 November 2010 17.01 EST

Few jazz musicians make it into the pop charts, even fewer for instrumental music of such coolly labyrinthine grooves that audiences could barely shake a leg to it. California-born pianist and composer Dave Brubeck – who did all that in the 1950s and 60s, and whose 90th birthday is next week – is one of the great popularisers of jazz, a visionary who made it speak to millions without selling its audacious spirit down the river. He no longer plays internationally, but his musician sons Darius, Chris and Dan, augmented by British saxist Dave O'Higgins, are rekindling the old magic.

The four cantered affectionately through the hit list, but shrewdly didn't try to clone the original sound. Typically playful, time-juggling themes such as Raggy Waltz emphasised both their composer's far-sighted fusions of classical and jazz forms, and the current ensemble's own identity, particularly in drummer Dan's looser, splashier sound and electric bassist Chris's slippery and sometimes funk-influenced phrasing. And O'Higgins is a contemporary tenor and soprano player of keening soulfulness rather than an airy, fluttering alto saxist like the late Paul Desmond. But O'Higgins's edge brought a renewed poignancy to the dreamy Koto Song, and on Take Five his climax-building high-end multiphonics contrasted with Darius's steady enunciation of the famous 5/4 riff.

The pianist's Lion at the Bar, a boogieing groover that reflected Darius's playing and teaching experience in South Africa, reminded the audience that sheltering under the Brubeck umbrella is by no means all the maestro's offspring do.